Pre-Chapter A/N:Welcome to September, guys! Let's smash whatever goals we've set ourselves this year. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio. Experimenting with two chapters a week, we'll see how long I can keep this up for.
XXXXX- CEE
He could see the walls of Iwagakure now, just over the horizon. The fact that he could meant that most of their remaining army could, and those men were revitalized by the sight. When he had pictured this siege, he had foreseen time spent at the wall, strategizing, planning, and then several meetings between the Raikage and whoever was interim-Tsuchikage as they discussed and negotiated the terms of Iwa's surrender. Surely they would have known that the battle was unwinnable for them, he thought. But he had been wrong.
They had committed to doing this, and Iwa had committed to resistance; and so they acted as barbarians, as civilized beings would, and they struggled against the inevitable. The presence of landmines did not even bother them now. Every explosion was borne. They could strain their senses and hear the click of the landmines being triggered. They now knew how to time the varied detonations the Iwa shinobi used. They could avoid the explosions more than half the time, and that meant the difference between crushing losses moving forward and bearable ones.
It took a few more minutes until they were only a few feet away from the mountain that housed the village hidden in the stone. They reached it and began to scale. It was a sheer cliff face, one that required them to climb with either wall-walking or hands and feet. They could not simply walk up it.
In all things, the Raikage was the first. He reached the mountain, dug his hands into the stones a bit above his head, and then pulled himself up until he could stab his hand into the next handhold. His feet followed. Cee doubted they would have dared plant explosives on their own mountain. He was right. Much of the climb was undisturbed, even as it strained their bodies with the effort it required. They followed the Raikage's lead, putting their bodies to the test to conserve their chakra. They had no doubts that they would be expected to begin the assault the second they crested the mountain. For shinobi, physical exertion was dangerous, but far beneath chakra exhaustion and the dangers that came with it.
He climbed, focused on putting one hand in front of the other as he got in what was a good workout by his standards, using the barest slivers of chakra to enhance his muscles and allow him to push forwards regardless of the winds that began to buffet him as they got close to the beginning of cloud cover. Kumo was without a doubt the highest village. They were so far beyond cloud cover that one could struggle to see the clouds at times. Iwa, by contrast, had their mountain just top out right at the beginning of the lowest clouds. He pushed himself over, noting that he was the seventh to finish the climb. The gold and silver brothers, fools that they were, were passing a flask of sake between them under the Raikage's disapproving gaze. Yui and Killua sat to the sides, but their eyes were warily fixed on Iwa's walls. Walls that were so still, one could have mistaken them for undefended.
"We wait five minutes, and then I want those walls," the Raikage said before sitting down in the lotus position.
"He's meditating? Here? Right in front of Iwa's walls?"
"Takes balls of steel," Cee heard the gold and silver brothers whispering to each other, and he almost facepalmed. Of course, none of them were as sensitive to chakra as he was. If they were, they would be able to feel the Raikage taking in chakra from the very air around them, the ground beneath their feet, the water in the mountain. All of it was flowing into his body, multiplying itself with his own massive reserves, and coming together to form something more potent than either of the individual parts had been—Sage Chakra.
Cee wished he could join the Raikage in his meditation, but he knew his role. He organized the men as they crested the top. Iwa was letting them get this close for a reason. He had no idea what was going to come their way once they began advancing at the walls, but he knew it was not going to be good. If they made no moves to attack now, then there was every chance they either simply weren't in range of Iwa's final line of defenses, or they were holding off for some reason. Maybe the defenses weren't ready—a possibility considering how quickly they had made it here—or they were being held in reserve for some reason.
XXXX- JIRACHI OF IWAGAKURE
She twitched as she looked over her shoulder, through the hole in the walls again, and saw them. The Kumo shinobi. They were still there. They were going to come for her village today. And she would have to do her duty to defend it from them. To defend it from men that had walked through every set of traps the Explosion Corps had prepared for this exact occasion.
And she was here, the first line of defense, because of how strong the kekkei genkai ran in her. She wished she had never passed that damn test. She just wanted to be home with her parents now, held in their arms, told everything would be okay, and just allowed to sleep. She wanted to sleep so much now. Never in her twelve years of life had she gone so long without it.
'Come here, Jirachi. Infuse this with your power, Jirachi,' they had told her over a dozen times. Of course, they thought it was easy for her because she could do it. But they never knew how each of those massive pillars pulled at her chakra and stretched her like a rubber band pulled to its limit. Stretched so far that it could never regain its old shape—that is what Jirachi felt like.
"Come here, Jirachi," she heard those words again and fought off the urge to moan in tiredness.
"Yes, Sensei," she said, getting up and trotting after her. She wondered what they wanted her to use her kekkei genkai on now.
—
"Sensei, what are these?" she asked in shock. Instead of the battlements or the armory, they'd taken her to the museum. Except that instead of the museum itself, she had been taken to a subterranean level that she had never seen before. It was almost definitely a secret of some sort. So secretive that she was almost certain she did not belong there. That point was driven home as her sensei led her through the vault of artifacts. Quite a few of them caught her attention. She recognized the First Tsuchikage's armor on display and silently wondered if this was the original and if the one above was the copy or the other way around.
Something told her no one would go to this much trouble to secure a copy. Without stopping, Sensei led her forward to an upraised dais. This thing had pride of place. Even beyond the armor of the First. Even beyond that spear that was glowing for some reason in the dark room. She walked forward, and when her Sensei stopped, she stopped as well. On the dais was a bowl, and in the bowl were a set of worms? It was those worms she asked about.
"Iwagakure's greatest secret. They are the key to the Explosive Clay Kekkei Genkai."
"What is that, Sensei?"
"The explosive clay was a kinjutsu created even before the formation of Iwagakure. When the First Tsuchikage defeated the explosion release clans, he took the Kinjutsu because of the potential it had to create a superior breed of shinobi. Unfortunately, using the kinjutsu has not been so easy for the village," her sensei said. Jirachi just looked at the worms, wondering what they could do.
"Do you know what a kinjutsu is?"
"It is a jutsu forbidden by the Tsuchikage. Either because of its danger to the general public or the danger it poses to the user," she answered, just like she was back at the academy.
"Exactly. These worms are a kinjutsu because if they bond to someone without a great enough affinity for the explosion release, the person will die." Jirachi took a step back right then. She was not a fool. Far from it. The enemy was at the gate, and now her Sensei had taken her somewhere to be exposed to something that could create a superior shinobi? There was only one reason she would have been brought here.
"Don't worry, Jirachi. We've been testing you for the past few days. Your affinity with the kekkei genkai is greater than anyone else we have ever measured. You would have been offered the worms sooner or later. This isn't just a desperate gambit because we think we need you," Sensei said, but Jirachi did not believe her. How could she?
Just last year, Jirachi had been in the academy, not even top of her class. They were going to sacrifice her. This was a death sentence.
She moved to run, but then she felt a hand on her wrist.
"Please," she begged her sensei, tears falling from her eyes as her voice choked up against her will.
"For Iwa. Do your duty, Jirachi." And then no matter how much she tried to struggle, there was nothing she could do to stop her hands from being shoved towards the worms. The second she was close enough, they reared up, jumping into her palms as a second one jumped into her chest. The last thing she saw was her Sensei's expression, resolute, and so sure in her rightness before all she knew was darkness.
—
"Good to see you survived it." It was a different voice that welcomed her to consciousness. Her eyes opened, struggling with even that movement. The rest of her body was locked up; she couldn't move a single thing.
"Oh, you can't see me. Let's solve that, shall we?" she heard the voice, and then her head turned against her will, and she found herself staring at an older woman. Not her sensei. Who are you? she wanted to ask.
"You're only a few years older than my grandson, you know?" the woman said next. What was she talking about? Who was she? Where was her Sensei?
"To think that you would have to bear such a burden at a young age," she heard the voice say next.
"I've done what you asked, given you the girl and the technique. Her body has finished adapting. Now do your bit and begone from my village, foul woman," another voice said. She knew this one better. It was the acting-Tsuchikage. Lord Third's wife. Given the girl? She had no doubts that she was the girl being given here. She was being given to this woman.
"Of course, Tatsuki-san. I just want to make sure she understands what exactly is being asked of her before I do so," the woman said next.
"Is there any value in that?"
"Some. I find the jutsu works best with some preparation. Besides, you want me to solve your problem, do you not? Get out and let me do my bit, as you called it." Jirachi was shocked to hear the acting-Tsuchikage being spoken to like that. Especially considering she heard footsteps now as the Tsuchikage left.
"You must be so confused as to what is going on, Jirachi-san. You see, your village is making a great sacrifice, and you have been asked to make a greater one." Whatever questions she tried to ask could not leave her lips.
"My jutsu, human puppetry, allows me to take charge of a living human body and control it like it is my own. That is what you have been chosen for. You see, I explained the condition to your Kage, and she was more than willing to sacrifice you if it meant I would be able to get rid of the Raikage. That is what I am here for, you see. You and your siblings are going to help me defeat the Raikage." Siblings? This woman was insane. And now the crazy woman was cutting open her chest.
"Yes, your body will not be enough for this. Powerful as you are, the Raikage would tear you apart in seconds. That is where your siblings come in. You see, I consider all the bodies I control to be my children in some way. And you will help me get revenge for my firstborn once we add the Raikage to our small family." "Batshit crazy," Jirachi amended, stealing the phrase from Iwabe-kun.
"Meet your brothers and sisters," the woman said, and Jirachi watched them come from the shadows. Four of them in Anbu masks. The fifth was a man who wore monk robes. Probably from the Wind Temple, she guessed by the colors. And then there was another man. He was an Iwa shinobi like she was, but she had never seen him before. He was bald and looked to be near double her five feet in height. He was wide enough to match his height as well. A true giant of a man. He was probably bigger than the Raikage, she figured.
"Now, stay still, Jira-chan. This is the delicate bit." And that was the last she heard. All she knew after was silence.
XXXXXX- CEE
"We are ready, Raikage-sama," he whispered in his Kage's ear. The giant of a man opened his eyes, muscles flexing with every movement as he took to his feet again.
"Those are Iwa's walls," he said, turning to their arranged lineup of shinobi.
"I want them to be ours." And that was it. His lightning armor roared to life and he was off. Cee took off behind him, the rest of the army doing so. Except that before they could make it within two hundred meters of the wall, the gates swung open. Four Anbu, one monk, one Iwa shinobi—Cee counted them off before they rushed at the Raikage.
The monk moved faster than Cee had seen anyone other than the Raikage, or maybe that Uchiha girl from Konoha, move. His body glowed with a golden chakra that formed some sort of cloak around him to match the Raikage's lightning cloak. The Raikage struck first, stepping into the man's guard and landing a punch straight to the chest that should have caved said chest in and ended the fight there. Instead, the gold armor took the brunt of the blow, and Cee felt a chakra signature from above.
"Scatter!" he screamed before a white figure, looking to be made of clay, landed in their midst. A second later, it exploded, covering a sixth of the army in smoke. And then he felt the swarm of Iwa shinobi flow from the gates. This was it. He sighed and focused his senses.
There were four men around the Raikage. Dead men, he disregarded them almost immediately. Above them was the true threat. There was some sort of chakra construct. It was explosive, and its movements indicated that it was controlling its flight. Some sort of bird made of the same explosive clay as the thing that had landed in their midst earlier? He chanced a glance upwards and to the left, confirming it.
Another clay construct, this one shaped like an elephant, got bigger and bigger until it nearly blotted out a third of their army with its shadow before it landed. They managed to avoid being crushed under its feet as it landed, but that was not the true threat. From the thing's trunk came a spray of even more clay. It attached itself to a pair of chunin, and Cee watched as they died.
Another pair of chunin went in with their blades aimed for its legs. They cut through halfway, and then the thing began to bubble.
"Scatter!" he shouted for the second time. For the second time, it was too late. He crossed his arms in front of his face as the shockwave from the explosion nearly tore him from his feet. They were being slaughtered. Someone was in his guard. He ducked underneath the kunai by instinct.
His opposition thrust his palm in his face, and Cee felt his chakra prime itself for an explosion. He dodged to the side, allowing the explosion to hit nothing but air. Another clay construct was landing in their midst.
"Killua, shoot that thing down!" he shouted next, before he swung a fist at his opponent. He felt Killua's chakra bristle at being ordered, but the man moved to comply either way, aiming a jutsu toward where Cee could sense the bird and the two people atop its back.
His fist was slapped to the side, and he felt his skin sizzle as his opponent triggered a slam explosion with that slap. He returned his hand, wounded but not crippled, to his side. Taijutsu against this one would be a mistake.
The man sensed Cee's hesitation and stepped in, pressing the attack. Cee wove his chakra into the man's network even as he stepped back and ran for his next opponent. Behind him, he sensed the man place his hands against his own head. "Boom," Cee heard behind him a second later.
He stretched his senses toward his Kage and, to his shock, all four that faced him still lived. It was the monk, he realized. He was able to use the stalwart defense of that gold armor of his to force the Raikage's attention on him, even as the two Anbu and the Iwa shinobi tried to break through the lightning armor with their own attacks.
He sensed Killua's storm release miss the floating bird above by a hair's breadth. "Try again!" he screamed, running towards the man.
"It's not easy getting it to stretch so far. Takes a lot more chakra and concentration," he said, even as Yui's cloth wrapped around shinobi here and there, using them as bludgeons against each other.
A/N: Iwa makes a deal with the devil that sees them brought back from the brink and given a chance to survive this. Suna loses its most dangerous shinobi to betrayal, and the rest of her S-ranks are adrift. Now all we need to make this explosive mix even more so, by tossing Konoha and our favorite psychopath into the running. Next five up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.